Honorary Awards Applications Now Available Online

The Artistic Achievement Award, presented to an individual who has made a significant artistic contribution to the Off-Off-Broadway community;

The Caffe Cino Fellowship Award,
presented to an Off-Off-Broadway theatre company that consistently
produces outstanding work. This award also includes a grant to be used
toward an Off-Off-Broadway production.

The Ellen Stewart Award,
presented to an individual or organization demonstrating a significant
contribution to the Off-Off-Broadway community through service, support
and leadership.

You
can't do it all alone, marketing and public relations for
Off-Off-Broadway is a group effort. Want to reach beyond Friends and
Family? Well, embrace Friends and Family! Put their network to work for you, empower them to help with marketing and sell tickets.

Stressed out, not enough time, hire help! Hire a publicist, hire a marketing expert, hire someone to do your social media. KampFIRE is offering 1/2 price mini-sessions,
one hour intensive Marketing Konsults to help you hone your outreach
and ensure you are targeting and reaching the proper audiences.

LIT Endorsed CandidatesThe League of Independent Theater has made its first round of endorsements: Scott Stringer for Comptroller, Eric Adams for Brooklyn Borough President and Jimmy Van Bramer for City Council District 26 in Queens.

Pop-Up JournalismThings are stirring in the arts journalism world with a new pop-up model called Engine 31 that received some attention at the recent Humana Festival. Check it out.

For
details about these and other important activities affecting OOB and to
see how you can help and get involved, check out the Community Corner.

Internship Applications Now Available

Work with us, learn with us! Intern with ITF in 2013!

We
are currently accepting applications for our internship program for our
2013 season The Innovative Theatre Foundation Internship Program offers
a rich and challenging experience for qualified college students,
graduates and young professionals who are actively pursuing careers in
professional theater.

Show
your community spirit and support the IT Awards with T-Shirts, hats,
photos from the 2012 IT Awards ceremony, and books about OOB and NYC
Theatre.

You can get yours now at our shop.BUY AMAZONAnd
don't forget, any time you buy something from Amazon and start by going
through our website, we get a percentage of your sale with no
additional cost to you.

Kamala Sankaram

by Christopher Borg

According
to her twitter account Kamala Sakaram is an opera singer, a composer,
an accordionist and an insomniac, which may account for her impressive
output of work as an artist.

Kamala was nominated last year for Outstanding Original Music for the production of Miranda,
produced by MirandaCo in association with HERE Arts Center, a
production that received the 2012 IT Awards for Outstanding Sound Design
(Matt Schloss) and Outstanding Production of a Musical and was
nominated for Outstanding Lighting Design (Nick Francone). The New York
Times said of the production "Miranda is strikingly original,
mainly because its principal vocal lines, which Ms. Sankaram sings in
the title role, are inventively shaped, full of character and
emotionally direct and authentic."

Kamala was recognized again
for her work on the piece as she was just awarded a Jonathan Larson
Grant from the American Theatre Wing on March 24th and performed a song
at the ceremony. Check out the video

Jonathan Larson was the famed composer of Rent
who died as his ground-breaking show opened on Broadway. His dream was
to infuse musical theatre with a contemporary, joyful, urban vitality.
The Jonathan Larson Grants were created "with the understanding that
without the grants that supplemented Jonathan's meager income, Jonathan
might never have written Rent" and have supported more than
eighty composers, lyricists, and librettists at the start of their
careers for the past 16 years. The recipients are chosen by a panel of
experts in musical theatre, many of whom are prior recipients.

Kamala created Miranda,
a steampunk murder mystery opera, as a resident artist at HERE Arts
Center. As a composer, Kamala Sankaram's music has been performed as
part of American Opera Projects "Opera Grows in Brooklyn" series, at
HERE Arts Center, the Stone, the Bang on a Can Summer Festival, the
Santa Fe New Music Festival, and the Lucerne Festival, among others. She
had the featured commission on the 2009 21C Liederabend, selected as
one of Time Out's 10 Best Classical Concerts. She was the 2012
Composer-in-Residence at the Eugene O'Neil Theater and has received
numerous grants.

I caught up with this musical insomniac genius to ask her a few questions:

CB: What was your experience like working on Miranda?

KS:Miranda
was my first musical, and I definitely learned a lot! I think working
in downtown theater has taught me to be very flexible, and how to make
something grand without necessarily having a lot of resources at my
disposal. The whole experience has made me very humble to be working in a
field full of such dedicated and talented people.

CB: What an honor to be recognized by the American Theatre Wing! Those folks give out TONYs!

KS:
As for the Larson Award, never in my wildest dreams could I have
imagined that I would win! It's such a validation of my reasons for
coming to NY and wanting to work in the theater in the first place. And
it's gratifying to know that even when you're working on a shoestring,
the work can still be good, and there are people out there who will
appreciate it.

CB: Anything you are working on now?

KS:
Right now, I'm working on a new show called Thumbprint collaborating
with the acclaimed playwright Susan Yankowitz. It's the story of Mukhtar
Mai, the first woman in Pakistan to successfully prosecute an honor
crime. It goes into production next January as part of the PROTOTYPE
Festival...it blends Western and Hindustani classical music.

In
addition to her musical pursuits, Kamala has created voice characters
for the Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, and Studio Mouse.

On
April 21st the Tri-Centric Orchestra, the resident ensemble of Anthony
Braxton's Tri-Centric Foundation, premiered three compositions for a
16-piece ensemble including Kamala. Her piece, "Dark Flow," based on
the astrophysical phenomenon wherein galaxy clusters are pulled by an
unseen force.

If you want to check out more of her work, you can
head uptown to the Guggenheim! From April 28-30 she is joining
choreographer Manou Phuon for Khmeropedie III, a dance based on the
movements of the white-handed Gibbon as a part of the Guggenheim Museum
Works in Process.